


Unexpected

by Linsky



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, First Time, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, alien sex pollen, sexual revelations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 13:56:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4567080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim sees something that proves unexpectedly hot, and the resulting obsession won't let him go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I posted elsewhere going on three years ago and, to my eternal shame, never finished. I thought maybe it was time to fix that (and also to distract myself from the implosion of other fandoms that will not be mentioned here). Hope you enjoy!

Jim looked through the long ferns that bent over his face, up at the high ceiling where tiny lights cast a faint glow down over the botanical garden. Like stars, he thought. Almost like stars.

He was fully conscious of the ridiculousness of his current position. Well—maybe not fully conscious. Full consciousness would have required the consumption of a few fewer glasses of brandy than he’d had at the ship’s midsummer celebration that evening. But he knew it was ridiculous, a grown man and starship captain lying in the ferns feeling sorry for himself.

It had really been a fine party. He should have enjoyed it more than he did. That lack of enjoyment was directly connected to his current position. It was the same feeling of something under his skin, restlessness mixed with an obscure sort of self-pity, that had haunted him throughout the party and had led him to come to the botanical garden instead of going back to his cabin.

_No, Jim,_ he thought, dragging a hand across his forehead, _if you’re going to indulge in self-pity, at least do it honestly._ It wasn’t going back to his cabin that he’d dreaded. It was going back to his cabin alone.

The lot of a starship captain: to stand at the edge of a party looking magnanimous while other crewmen flirted with the women he wasn’t allowed to approach. Hell, didn’t want to approach, for both their sakes. No good could come of a starship captain propositioning an inferior officer (and hadn’t he learned that one the hard way). But that didn’t make it easy, and for some reason it had been grating on him more than usual lately. He’d let the solitude get under his skin, maybe: Bones, Sulu, hell, even Spock could find people outside their chain of command to flirt with, if they really wanted to. Not that Spock would ever want to. But Jim was the only one who didn’t even have the choice.

It was the price he paid, and Lord knows he would never say it wasn’t worth it. It just had been on his mind lately, for who knew what reason. He had left the party early, as usual, but this time it wasn’t just to give the crew time to cut loose without him. If he had to watch another couple cozying up to each other on the dance floor…well, he was seriously considering putting down some names for maintenance duty during the next outbreak of stomach flu.

That was the mood that had led him to the botanical garden. His current position amid the ferns—well, that was a lot more related to the number of drinks he’d had than to his melancholy, thought it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to connect the two.

Maybe it was just because it reminded him of the woods back home. He had used to love this: finding a quiet clearing at night and lying down, feeling the low-hanging leaves tickle his skin, watching the stars through the latticework of treetops. Used to scare his mother half to death when he’d trail back in from the woods long after dark, but he couldn’t resist.

These weren’t stars, of course; just emergency lighting. But he knew the real things were there: so close, so much closer than they’d ever been when he’d been a boy in Iowa, when captaining a starship had been only a dream. This was what he’d chosen, and he’d say it a thousand times: no one would ever catch him claiming it wasn’t worth it. But sometimes…well, sometimes it wasn’t easy.

The swoosh of the door interrupted his reverie and made him stiffen. He cursed himself and his alcohol-addled brain for not thinking to lock it with the captain’s code: of course there would be people coming in and out of the botanical garden at night, especially on the night of a party. Well, it was dark, and the botanical garden was large. He would lie quietly and hope whoever it was didn’t come across him.

The sound of footsteps told him it was more like two people. And coming closer—damn. Jim took a quick glance down at himself to make sure he was well hidden in the shadows of the ferns. He would never hear the end of this one if they found him like this.

The newcomers came into view, in a clearing in the trees near Jim’s hiding place. Jim raised his eyebrows in surprise. One of them was Commander Spock.

Well, no reason Spock shouldn’t be in the botanical garden at night. He was as much entitled to private conversations as the rest of the crew. Still, it didn’t seem…well, it didn’t seem a Spock-like way to do things, that was all. But there was no mistaking him, even in the dim lighting.

With him was a lieutenant from engineering. Lieutenant Growdon, Kirk thought his name was. That seemed particularly odd. Kirk didn’t know of any business Spock would have had with the man at this hour of ship’s night, when the ship wasn’t on alert. Unless it was something personal?

He was just wondering this when Spock leaned in to kiss Growdon on the mouth.

Kirk went rigid with surprise. His first reaction was pure shock: Spock was kissing a man. _Spock_. Kissing a _man_. Of everything he might have seen in the botanical garden late at night, that was the last thing he would have expected. His third reaction was the faint worry that this was violating the protocols of command—he couldn’t remember the organizational chart at the moment, to know if this was okay.

But his second reaction, and the one that swiftly swamped the other two, was arousal.

He tried to deny it to himself at first. Yeah, fine, he was a little horny; it had been far too long, and he’d spent the evening looking at beautiful women he couldn’t have. It certainly wasn’t this sight that did anything for him. He felt nothing—certainly no heat in his groin or suspicious tightness in his pants. He had never been interested in men, in point of fact. That was why he didn’t care about the way Spock was holding Growdon close, running his hands over his back, slipping a hand into his hair. Why he didn’t care about the way their mouths were joined, or the faint wet sounds that came from their tongues and lips sucking on each other. Didn’t even notice the hungry press of their bodies from chest to groin. He certainly wasn’t caught on the rhythm of their kisses, his own pulse rising and falling—mostly rising—with the motion of their bodies against each other…

Spock gave a moan of pleasure. His deep voice caught Kirk off guard and sent a swooping heat through his stomach. He felt his cock give an answering throb that made him grit his teeth and try not to pay attention. He was not interested in men that way—not interested in Spock that way, above all. Hell, he was a Vulcan—barely even connected with sexuality. Except that what Jim was seeing right now couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

But the point was that it didn’t matter who Jim was seeing. He had had too much brandy, and it had been too long since he’d gotten any. He could have been seeing anyone making out like that: two…two Gorns, or two Klingons, for Lord’s sake, and it would have done the same to him. He was just drunk, just horny…

Growdon’s hands moved down to Spock’s ass and gave a squeeze. Kirk bit his lip to stifle an exclamation. His own hands gripped the fronds of fern beside him as he tried to keep from imagining the feel of those buttocks under his own fingers.

Their kisses were getting hungrier. He could hear their ragged breath, and it was all he could do not to let his breathing match theirs. All he could do not to imagine what it would be like to be one of the participants in that kiss, and to ignore the blood pounding in his cock at the thought…

Spock stripped the lieutenant of his shirt in one quick motion. That was the first time Kirk had the clear thought that he should look away, that he shouldn’t be watching this. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to avert his eyes as Growdon tore Spock’s shirt off in turn to reveal Spock’s chest: smooth, strongly muscled, with faint dark hair. His nipples stood out as two erect nubs. Growdon lowered his mouth to one of them, and Spock tilted his head back. “Yessss,” he hissed through his teeth.

Then they were kissing again, strong torsos pressing together, hands grasping fiercely at bare flesh. Growdon’s hands went to Spock’s fly.

Kirk felt as if he could hardly move. Now. Now was the time when he should look away, but he was frozen by…what? Curiosity? Not arousal, definitely not arousal. He had seen Spock naked before, he was sure he must have, there was nothing he could gain by…

Growdon pulled Spock’s underwear down to reveal a glistening cock, hard and long and full and faintly green. Jim felt a flush of heat travel through his body at the sight of it. Spock was panting as Growdon ran his hand lightly along it. Then Spock’s hands were tearing at Growdon’s fly, pulling down his pants until both cocks were free to rub against each other. The two hard columns glinted in the low light, as their mouths joined again and their lower bodies thrust together.

Two cocks sliding against each other. Not a sight Jim would ever have said he wanted to see, but now he was going crazy at the sight of it. He balled his hands into fists at his sides and tried to pretend his own cock wasn’t throbbing. Deep breaths…deep, calming breaths and try to ignore the burning fire in his belly…

Suddenly Spock spun Growdon around so that his front was to one of the trees, and Kirk saw him slip a finger into the space between his buttocks. Growdon gave a cry, but not, Kirk thought, of pain: it was pleasure, unbridled, unleashed. Spock pressed his body against Growdon’s and slipped another finger inside.

Growdon was moaning and writhing. Spock’s naked back and buttocks were glinting in the low lights. Kirk had never been more turned on his life.

A third finger, twisting and thrusting into Growdon’s opening. Then the whole hand removed. A voice in Growdon’s ear, low and sending shivers along Kirk’s skin: “Do you want it?”

_Say yes,_ Kirk thought, despite himself. He felt a surge of anticipation, of desperate hunger, of wanting to see this complete. More than anything, he wanted to see Spock enter that man. His own cock was aching for it.

“Yessss,” Growdon moaned. “Please.”

That thick green column, shiny now from lube, visible for a moment more. Then Spock thrust up, plunged himself into Growdon’s body, sheathed his cock and pierced the other man through.

“Yes!” Growdon cried, sounding almost as if he were sobbing. “Yes, Spock, yes, take me…”

The motion was fast and frantic. Kirk could barely breathe. Spock plunging again and again into Growdon’s cavity, both of them gasping for air, Spock’s chest pressed to his back. Spock’s other hand coming around, stroking Growdon’s erection and making the man moan. Both of them crying out now. Spock speeding up, his cock appearing and disappearing…

Jim had to wrap a hand tightly around his erection through his pants. If he hadn’t, he thought he might have come from the sight alone. There was nothing he had ever seen that was so erotic, so hot, so utterly debauched as that naked back and buttocks rocking against another man, or that cock sliding in and out of the opening. Every nerve in his body was aflame, and the fire was hottest low in his belly, sending out burning tendrils along his cock. The throbbing in his organ had reached the level of pain. He wanted…he wanted…

Spock gave a cry and shuddered with orgasm. A second later, Growdon was coming, shooting come all over the oak tree in front of him. They stood still for a moment, before Spock slid out of him and turned him around. Jim could see the languidness in their movements. Spock put a hand to Growdon’s cheek, kissed him lightly on the mouth.

For some reason, that had a jarring effect on Kirk. He could not have said why, but that kiss bothered him when the others hadn’t. He felt a pang that wasn’t entirely obscured by the ache of unsatisfied arousal still burning in his veins.

“This was perhaps not the wisest choice of locations,” Spock said in a low voice.

“We’ll be more careful next time,” Growdon whispered back, carding his hands through Spock’s hair.

They stole occasional kisses as they gathered up their clothing. Spock dressed quickly, his nakedness disappearing into the still-tidy uniform. He wiped down the tree bark while Growdoin finished dressing. Then they were gone through the trees, trailing caresses.

Jim, meanwhile, was still lying in the dark. He waited about two minutes after their departure, then got up and stumbled toward the exit and out into the corridor.

It was late enough that he wasn’t too concerned about who he would meet in the halls. Which was a good thing, given his current state. He could have waited for things to…subside, but he had a feeling that was a hopeless proposition.

What the hell had just happened? That was the foremost question in his mind as he hurried through the corridors. He had never in his life been aroused by the sight of a man—of men—

The thought made his cock twitch again. He ignored it.

Jim reached his cabin and threw himself down on the bed almost before the doors had slid shut. It was the work of a moment to free his aching cock from his uniform pants. Lord, but his hand felt good around it. It really had been too long, even since he’d last done this. That was the real problem: not what he had seen, but the state he had been in when he had seen it. He would give himself a really good fantasy. He would think of Ruth: of soft, pliable breasts, the curve of her hips, the warmth of the cavity he was sinking into…

His hand sped up on his cock. Yes, that was right. A warm mouth against his own as well. Bare skin…a smooth back above him, under his stroking hands…firm buttocks for him to squeeze. He was gasping now and thrusting into his hand. He could feel the other tongue in his mouth, the slide of skin on skin. The fingers that reached down and opened him up. And then a cock…a big hard cock that lined up against his opening and then slid in, to fill him up…taking him again and again and filling him and fucking him and making him light up like a Christmas tree and making his own cock throb and jerk in his hands and his balls tighten until…

He came in a riptide of pleasure. It pulled him under and held him for long moments. Long enough for the imaginary cock inside him to finish thrusting, for him to start to be horrified, to be ashamed, to be shocked. Shocked that one of the most powerful orgasms of his life had come from imagining himself being fucked by a man.

He opened his eyes into the darkness. “Well, shit,” he said aloud.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, when Jim entered the bridge, he had to control the flush that threatened to rise to his cheeks when he saw Spock standing at the science station. It would have been the height of unprofessionalism to give any sign of what he had seen—spied on—the night before in the botanical garden. But he remembered; his body remembered; and it was several minutes before the warm flush of arousal left his belly.

It wasn’t as if he actually felt any of these things for Spock. It was just the memory of what he’d seen that made his body heat on seeing him. The memory of Spock’s naked body, his cock hard and his back arched in the throes of passion...

Jim made a point of asking Spock to have lunch with him that day. He needed fresh memories of him in a non-erotic context to cover over the others.

Lunch was awkward at first. Jim kept losing the thread of conversation and having to stammer his way back to the topic. But after a few minutes of more-or-less normal conversation, his discomfort started to dissolve. This was Spock, after all. It had always been easy for Jim to talk to him.

He was surprised at how relieved this made him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d worried that what he’d seen might have ruined the friendship he shared with Spock. That would have been more than he could bear. Now, as he sat across from the dispassionate face and discussed their upcoming exploratory mission, he was reassured by his ability to have a normal conversation without constantly thinking about what he’d seen. Without thinking of that same face contorted in passion, letting out a low moan. Of those hands, clenched around another man’s buttocks...

“Jim?” Spock’s deep voice interrupted his thoughts.

Jim snapped his gaze up from Spock’s hands. “Hm?” How many times had Spock had to say his name?

“Is something distressing you?”

“Oh—no, not at all.” He let out a shaky laugh. “Sorry, Spock. Just a little distracted.”

“I see.” Spock raised an eyebrow. One of those eyebrows that Growdon had run his tongue over the night before, while their aroused cocks had ground together.

Okay, well, maybe things weren’t quite back to normal. But Jim would get there.

***

A week later, Kirk sat in his quarters, fingers drumming on the shelf next to the replicator controls.

It had been an innocent enough discovery that morning. He had been searching through the controls for the replicator, trying to figure out where some meddling bureaucrat had reorganized the depilatory gel to, when he had come across a category called “Other Items.” He had opened it and seen...

A cock.

Well, not a cock exactly. _Dildo_ was the technical term for it. Long, thick, made of dark rubber and shaped pretty much just like a certain erection he had recently had cause to see and had attempted (with very minimal success) not to remember.

His belly had tightened at the sight of it. He had quickly skipped to the next item, but it had also been a dildo, slightly different in shape. The next one, a dildo that vibrated...

Kirk had shut off the replicator and fled the room for alpha shift. But that night, he found himself back at the replicator, fingers itching to pull up that category of other items again.

The problem was that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Things had gotten better with Spock, after that first lunch. Their long-ingrained patterns of behavior were strong enough that even if he couldn’t quite look at Spock without thinking about it, at least his lapses had gotten less noticeable. But at night, when he lay down in his bunk with his hand wrapped around himself...

It was like being caught in a strange cycle of arousal. He had never been aroused by the thought of a male before, certainly not by the thought of two men together, but now that he had started it was impossible to stop. Impossible not to ride the fantasy to its end. Impossible not to imagine that hard cock sliding into him...

He was breathing heavily, still sitting there looking at the replicator screen. His pants were feeling tight in the front.

What the hell. He was going to picture it anyway. Might as well make it more realistic.

He turned on the replicator and dialed up the category he’d found that morning. He spent a few minutes browsing through the various options, feeling that tightening in his belly again as he looked at the long, smooth cocks. Finally he selected one and hit the button.

The light turned green. He slid open the door.

There it lay, ten inches of hard rubber rounded in the most alluring way possible. Jim felt his stomach lurch. He picked it up and felt its weight. He had the strangest desire to put his mouth over it, to feel it in all his cavities...

He pulled himself back together. He started to get up, hesitated a moment, and dialed a tube of lube from the replicator. It wasn’t as if he was used to taking this kind of thing.

He stripped off his clothing and stood for a moment holding the dildo and the lube. It occurred to him that he wasn’t totally sure of the best way to do this.

Lying down—that was probably a start. Kirk lay down on the bed and tried to calm the butterflies in his stomach. Best to get himself properly aroused first. He let his hand stroke slowly up and down his cock, his breath coming faster and his hardness growing. As it always did these days, the action brought with it images of penetration, of a naked back and buttocks pressed against another as a hard cock slid into place, and the desire to feel what it was like...

That desire was burning in him now. He needed that cock in his ass, _now._ He uncapped the tube of lube and spread some on his fingers. It was smooth and a bit cold. He parted his knees and slipped his fingers inside the tight ring of muscle.

The muscle resisted at first. Then his fingers were in, first one, then two, then three, massaging the tight muscle of his passage. His eyelids fluttered shut at the feeling. He had done this to himself before, but not with lube, and not with the anticipation of something else soon filling the passage.

He massaged inside himself until he felt the muscles were sufficiently relaxed. Then he took more lube onto his fingers and picked up the dildo.

It felt so strange, to rub the lube along it. Kirk felt flutters of excitement, of tension, of arousal all along his torso and limbs. The cock in his hands was so solid, so massive, and it would soon be inside him.

He positioned the dildo at his opening and closed his eyes. His breath was coming in pants now. He allowed himself to imagine: the dark figure above him, the soft lips kissing his mouth, the cock that was hard with desire for him...

His own cock throbbed. He pushed the dildo against his sphincter muscle.

He gasped at that first feeling of penetration. The _fullness_ was like nothing he’d ever felt before. He pushed it further in, feeling his passage expand to accommodate it. There was a flash of pain, but it was swamped by the arousal that was spiking along his body. “Ohhh yes...” he moaned.

Barely a third of the dildo was inside him yet. He pushed it further in, his body straining to take it, his breath coming in short gasps. Farther...farther...

It was all in, down to the base. Jim lay there gasping and acclimating himself to the sensation. It was strange, it was new, it was...the hottest thing he’d ever experienced. With maybe one exception.

He pulled it a few inches out and thrust it back in. He arched off the bed at the impact. “Yes, fuck me,” he murmured through clenched teeth. “Yes, just like that...”

He slid the dildo in and out of his passage, establishing a rhythm. His other hand wrapped itself around his cock and pulled. His breathing was ragged and irregular. His fingers found the button at the bottom of the dildo, the one that activated its other features, and pushed it.

The dildo started vibrating inside him. Jim gasped as his pleasure arced to new heights. The vibrating cock slid in and out of him, thrusting, opening him up. “Yes,” he moaned again. “Yes, fuck me, take me, harder, deeper, yes, _now_...oh, Spock...”

He exploded all over his hand. The pleasure racked his body and made him arch and twist. The dildo was still vibrating inside him, the feeling so intense to his sensitized body that it was almost like pain, and he hit the button to make it still. It stayed in him, filling his passage as he emerged from the haze of pleasure and realized what he had said.

“Wait,” he said aloud. “Wait. No.” No. It wasn’t about Spock. It was about what he’d seen. He couldn’t assume, just because he’d said...

Spock had been the one doing the fucking, after all. Growdoin had cried out Spock’s name. That’s why Jim had done so: he was recreating the scene. It wasn’t about his feelings for Spock. He didn’t have feelings for Spock; not like that. It was just a fantasy, just the memory of what he’d seen...

He put aside the dildo and got up to clean himself off. Thank God they had shore leave coming up. He needed to sleep with a woman, and fast.


	3. Chapter 3

Kirk was running late for the department head meeting the next morning. He had woken up to see the dildo on his bedside table, and he hadn’t been able to resist the urge to use it again. He was still feeling a little weak in the knees as he ran to breakfast.

This was usually the morning he and Spock had breakfast together. He paused in the doorway and did a sweep of the mess in search of the familiar form. He finally found him, off in a corner—having breakfast with Lieutenant Growdon.

For no reason at all, Jim felt all of his internal organs shrivel up and die. Of course he knew that the two of them were…well, no point in beating around the bush: they were lovers. But he hadn’t really been thinking about it. Which was ironic, since pretty much all he’d done for the last week was think about it. But that had been about a fixed memory from a week ago, an erotic fantasy-fueling one-time memory. It wasn’t supposed to extend into his real, day-to-day life, and certainly wasn’t supposed to show up at the table at breakfast. A breakfast he was supposed to share with Commander Spock.

Since Spock the ever-punctual was still in the mess, it didn’t make sense for Jim to rush off to the department head meeting—but that was the excuse he gave himself. He got to the briefing room a full ten minutes early, and it was five minutes before the door swished open to admit the next attendee.

It was Spock, of course. Jim felt his mouth dry up. Which was ridiculous, since he saw Spock all the time, spent his days with him on the bridge, played chess with him at night (or had, anyway; it had somehow not happened this past week). Sure, things had been a little weird right after the incident, but in the week since, Jim had gotten very good at putting it out of his mind when he was in Spock’s actual presence

Except that now, as Spock sat down next to him and nodded his head in greeting, Jim was hyperaware of that body only a foot or two from his. Hyperaware of those hands, now resting on the table, hands which had probably been shoved up Growdon’s ass last night; of those lips, which he had half-accidentally imagined moving against his own. Of the eyes that had been looking at Growdon across the breakfast table just now. Looking only at Growdon.

Jim gritted his teeth and told himself not to think about it. He didn’t care who Spock looked at. It was just the memory, messing with his head. For heaven’s sake, Spock was one of his best friends—not someone he actually wanted to sleep with. The sick feeling in his stomach right now might be jealousy, but not because he wanted to be with Spock; it was just because he wanted to be with someone, and he was jealous that Spock was and he wasn’t.

It really had been too long. That was what it all came down to. His, ahem, solitary activities just weren’t doing it (much as, in another sense, they very, very much were doing it). He needed a real woman pressed against him. Once he got some in real life, he wouldn’t need to feel hollow inside just because Spock had breakfast with someone else. Wouldn’t need to wish it was his own touch that made Spock gasp and moan for more.

“Are you feeling well, Captain?” Spock asked him.

Jim snapped to alertness and tried not to wince. He had no idea what had been written on his face, but he really needed to stop making Spock ask questions like that. “Just thinking about plans for shore leave, Mr. Spock,” he said lightly.

***

The crew had been looking forward to it for weeks: Command had granted them four days of shore leave on the nearest Federation planet before they set off for their next exploratory mission in deep space. Jim sorted through the rosters the night before it began, double-checking what Spock had put together and scoping out destinations. Most crew members were headed for the capital city below, but the few who weren’t had been required to log their destination before departure.

He got to a certain name and stopped. “Damn.” He closed his eyes. Of course he should have anticipated this. Spock had been granted shore leave just like everyone else, and he hated city crowds. Naturally, he had chosen a small town out of the way of the main city.

And just as naturally, Growdon was going to the same place.

The plunging feeling of despair took him for several moments before Jim remembered that he didn’t care. Spock and Growdon could go wherever they wanted, fuck as many times as they pleased; it made no difference to him.

He closed out of the duty rosters and pulled up a guide to the city below. There was something he needed to find.

***

“Anyone I can steer your way?” asked the pretty woman at the front door of the establishment. Marlena’s was said to be the best; there would be nothing seedy about the staff here. Nothing hidden from Federation law. 

Jim gave her a smile. “I think I’d like to look around for a while, if you don’t mind,” he said.

She took the proffered credit chip with a gracious smile of her own and nodded him through the interior door.

Jim knew he was in the right kind of place as soon as he walked in. The luxuriously appointed bar area was dotted with people: couples sitting at secluded tables, a few clients and employees standing by the bar or leaning against tables. The employees were easy to spot: they were all dazzlingly beautiful and impeccably dressed.

Kirk had been to a fair number of places in this vein over the years, when the lonely life of a starship captain had demanded a little variety. This was exactly what he needed: a good fuck in a nice place, with no strings attached. He gave a few of the girls an approving once-over, and they smiled back at him. Lovely, all of them, but none of them quite what he was looking for tonight. He would know it when he saw it. He always did.

He saw it leaning against a table near the back of the room. Jim’s breath caught in his throat as he took in the form, and he felt a flash fire of attraction flow through him. This, unknown to him, was what he had been looking for.

It was a man, leaning casually against the table. He was fit and well-built, probably a little larger than Kirk, his face a chiseled, dark sort of attractive. There was no mistaking him for anything but an employee: he wore the same look that all the girls did, subtly inviting attention without being in anyone’s face about it.

A male employee. Had he known Marlena’s employed men? Kirk supposed he hadn’t bothered to check. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to think about it.

For a moment he was tempted to deny it to himself, pretend that he was not attracted to this man, go approach one of the lovely girls who dotted the room so alluringly. But it was too late for that. Now that he had seen this man, he couldn’t look away, and he had to admit to himself that on some level he had known that this was where he would end up.

The man saw him approaching and gave him a smile. Jim returned the gesture with one of his thousand-watt smiles. Smiling always calmed his nerves. He could feel his heart pounding faster than usual, but it wasn’t solely nervousness that was driving it. It was the contour of the man’s arms through his shirt, the sharp angle of his jaw. The curve where his neck met his shoulder.

The man was still smiling when Kirk reached him. “Care to join me for a drink?” he asked.

He was just as attractive close up. Kirk felt his body coming alive at his closeness. “I’d love to.”

The man held out a hand to shake, making that most businesslike of gestures seem warm and natural and…sensual, somehow. “I’m Chase,” he said.

“Jim.” Jim took his hand and held it for a moment longer than he needed to. Chase let him, smiling a smile full of attraction and desire. His eyes were as dark as his hair, a powerful sort of dark. Just different enough from…but no, he wasn’t going to think about that. 

Chase flipped open a servo computer on the table. “Preference?” he asked.

Jim leaned in to look at the computer. As he did, he caught a whiff of Chase’s scent: the cool clean smell of aftershave mixed with something faint and undefinable that must have been his own natural smell. It made Jim’s head swim and his stomach clench with desire.

His hand had somehow found its way to Chase’s upper arm. He slid his hand along it, loving the feel of the muscle underneath the skin and imagining that strong arm around him. “You know what,” he said, “let’s skip the drink.”

There was no doubt that Chase understood his meaning. “If you like,” he said, amusement coloring his tone. “Perhaps you would like to…”

His hand stroked gently along Jim’s side, where his stomach met his ribcage. Jim inhaled sharply and looked at Chase through half-lidded eyes.

Chase threaded his fingers through Jim’s. “Come with me,” he said.

Chase led him across the room and up the curving staircase that led to the upper levels. He let go of Jim’s hand when they reached the stairs, and Jim followed behind him. He found his eyes resting naturally on the well-defined buttocks that showed clearly through Chase’s pants. He watched those buttocks flex and relax, flex and relax as Chase climbed the stairs, and he felt the heat of his blood pounding in his groin. Had he really never looked at another man’s ass like this? His pants were already feeling tight in the front.

They reached the top of the stairs, and Chase produced a key to one of the rooms. Kirk watched him unlock it and felt his body fill up with anticipation of the moments ahead. He knew what was going to happen when that door opened, and he wanted it, oh, he wanted it as he’d never wanted anything before.

Chase let him in first and locked the door behind them. Then he turned, and Jim felt a swooping of lust. Chase stepped forward to meet him.

Their lips met. The contact sent a ripple of shock through Jim’s body. He moaned aloud at the intensity of feeling: it was like his first kiss, the first time he’d ever felt another’s lips against his. It flowed through his body and unmade and remade everything in its wake. He put out his tongue, and the sweetness of the other mouth was before him, and all dissolved into the sudden thrusting and sucking and lapping and nibbling and plunging of tongues into each other’s throats.

A hard body against his. Jim gloried in the planes of his back under his hands. He moved his hands down to squeeze the buttocks, feel those orbs that had tempted him on the stairs. It was all feeding into the desire that swept dizzily through his blood and pooled in his groin.

His cock was rock-hard. It had been hard from the moment their lips had touched, and now every desperate kiss seemed to make it impossibly harder. He could feel the other cock hardening next to his, and he ground their hips together. The hardness of a cock next to his was a miracle—it was what he had wanted, for so long, without fully acknowledging it, and now it turned him on more than anything else could have.

His hands went under Chase’s shirt. He needed to feel skin. Chase pulled Kirk’s shirt off, and his hands grazed the bare chest to alight on nipples. Kirk wasn’t sure, but he thought he actually gave a whimper at the fingers tightening on his nubs. They send flashes of fire through his stomach and into his groin.

His mouth seized the other’s again in desperate kisses. He needed to assuage his hunger, but every stroke of their tongues only deepened it. His hips thrust harder against that bulge.

He moved his mouth over to Chase’s ear. “Fuck me,” he whispered. “Fuck me against that wall.”

Chase’s fingers undid Jim’s pants while his tongue plunged into his mouth again. Jim was breathless under those kisses, but he managed to undo Chase’s pants as well, freeing the stiff erection he had felt grinding against his own. His hand closed around that iron rod, and he felt a wave of desire crash through him. Yes, he had wanted to hold this, had wanted to feel this hardness in his fingers…

Chase spun him around against the wall, and Jim felt a spike of satisfaction. The other man pressed against him, the hard male form hot against his own, his lips at Jim’s neck. Jim’s cock was leaking pre-come, his stomach churning with pleasure and desire and anticipation. “Yes,” he whimpered, “now…”

Fingers entered him and made him gasp. They probed his passage, slick with lube, while the other hand came around to massage Jim’s stomach. Jim’s cock ached with the desire to be touched, but his arousal was so high, his panting breaths so desperate, that he knew a touch would finish him. He gritted his teeth and felt those fingers spread him open.

They withdrew, and Jim felt them kneading his buttocks. His passage was tingling and empty. “Now,” he begged through clenched teeth. “Please, put it in me, fuck me, now…”

The cock pressed against his opening, and Jim cried out. This was what he had longed for, had imagined, had simulated, and now the cock was pressing up into him…

It slid in, bringing with it a ripple of the fiercest excitement Jim had ever known. He gripped his hand around the base of his cock to keep from coming yet. The cock was still pushing in, deeper and deeper until Jim thought he would be split in two…

The other body started to rock against him, and Jim couldn’t control himself. He cried out with each thrust, swimming in the pleasure it brought him to have that hot cock moving inside his ass. To have that male body pressed against him, taking him, delving inside him. “Yes! Yes!” he cried, slamming his hands against the wall.

Hands had him by the waist, fingers tight around hipbones and stomach. One hand moved lower as his thrusts sped up, and Jim felt his cock seized in powerful strokes.

It was too much: the pleasure pushed him over the edge so that he was coming, coming, lost in endless pleasure as the cock inside him shuddered and spilled its juices. He was claimed…he was fucked…

The pleasure faded slowly as Jim leaned panting against the wall. He felt utterly spent, drained. The sudden lack of arousal in his system was like a breath of cool air. He felt his head clearing. The slightest trickle of unease…

Chase leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Well, that was the best I’ve had in a while.”

Jim chuckled weakly and straightened up, so that Chase had to move away. His cock slipped from Jim’s passage with slight sucking sound. “I bet you say that to all the boys,” he said.

Chase just grinned. “I wish.”

Jim tried to grin back, but he was having a hard time not bolting for the door. Nausea was starting to rise in his stomach as the situation hit home. That man had been inside him…that _man_ …that man whose features didn’t fall into the familiar lines that they should have, whose heart and mind he didn’t know the way he knew—

Jim moved away and tried not to look at Chase as he collected his pants and shirt. He pulled them on, hastily and a bit unsteadily, too embarrassed to do anything about the mess on himself.

What did one say after something like this? With a woman he would have been all charm, but he felt as if his charm had left the galaxy. “Well…that was…” he paused, his tongue failing him. “Er, thanks.”

“My pleasure.” Chase was standing in the middle of the room, naked and grinning, hands on his hips.

He leaned in for a kiss as Jim passed him on the way to the door. Jim ducked and kept going, almost walking into a corner of the wall. “Have a good night,” he muttered, and slunk through the door without so much as a glance behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

Following a not-very-restful night in a solitary hotel room, Kirk spent the next day firmly engaged in Project Don’t Think About It. Instead of thinking about it, he went to several of the city’s most celebrated museums, had lunch at an Earth-Mars fusion restaurant, and spent a few hours wandering among the shops on the main thoroughfare.

It was all rather a failure. Jim could hardly remember a time before in his life when he had felt that there were too many hours in the day. Usually there was so much he needed and wanted to get done that every minute was worth its measure in gold. Now, as he stood and watched the sun set outside the dozenth or hundredth or thousandth shop full of mediocre novelties and souvenir t-shirts, he had the sinking realization that there were still five or six hours before it would be a reasonable time to go to bed. It felt like an endless expanse.

He wasn’t used to being on shore leave alone. He almost always spent it with someone else: Bones, or Scotty, or—Spock. Yes, there had been a few times with Spock. It wasn’t often that Jim was able to convince him to take shore leave, but when he had, it had always been clear that Spock had enjoyed himself in his own quiet way. Like that time on Aurelia VII. He and Spock had spent a whole afternoon exploring a natural rock formation, and then they’d camped under the stars...

Jim wrenched his mind away. He was alone this time, and his reason for being alone was perfectly obvious in retrospect. He hadn’t wanted a witness to what he had half-consciously been planning to do last night.

But solitude wasn’t working in his favor right now. It was too hard to fill his head with things that would keep...other things...out, without someone with him. And paid company was out of the question, after last night. But he thought he might have a solution.

Half an hour later saw Kirk pushing open the door of a moderately seedy and extremely crowded bar. Not a bad place to kill an evening if one was in the right mood—and, unless he was mistaken, that particular mood was practically the trademark of a certain _Enterprise_ doctor.

Sure enough, it only took him a minute or two to spot the familiar furrowed face at a table halfway along the wall. A moment later, he spotted Scotty at the bar, leaning through the crowd and shouting at the bartender. Demanding his strongest scotch, no doubt.

The sight of both of them was surprisingly welcome. Jim felt something within him loosen as he wound through the crowd and slid into the booth across from Bones.

The doctor greeted him with a squint-eyed look. “Good God, man, you look like death warmed over.”

Kirk grinned weakly. “Thanks, Bones, it’s good to see you, too.”

“Must have been one hell of a night last night,” Bones drawled. “Be careful; you’ll make an old man jealous.”

Jim laughed in a way that he hoped wasn’t strained. “If you can’t drum up a night of excitement like no one else, then I’m nothing but a green Iowa farmboy.”

Scotty sat down then, setting a glass of something dark and amber-colored in front of McCoy. “Good tae see ye, Captain. The doctor and I were just asking ourselves what had become of ye.”

“A question I’m always asking of myself, gentlemen,” Jim said with a smile. “Now, what say you show a tired starship captain how to have a good time?”

The evening turned out to be a relatively quiet one, belying Jim’s ribbing of the good doctor. The three of them sat and talked and laughed over drinks for several hours, hovering on the edge of true drunkenness without every quite getting there. It was all mercifully distracting.

There was only one uncomfortable moment, when they were sizing up some of the women near them and McCoy waved a hand toward the bar. “Now, that woman there. If she hasn’t been making eyes at you all night, Jim, I’ll eat my medical license.”

Scotty choked on a laugh, and Jim cut his gaze toward the bar. He had dimly registered her presence before, but he hadn’t paid attention. Now he saw that Bones was right: she met his gaze with an unmistakable come-hither look.

Jim’s stomach roiled in immediate response. Yes, she was pretty—beautiful, even—but the thought of trying to approach anyone tonight made his gorge rise. He fought to keep his shoulders down and his hands relaxed so that Bones and Scotty wouldn’t notice. “No, I don’t think so,” he said in what he hoped was a light voice.

McCoy eyed him shrewdly. “What’s wrong, Jim-boy, too tuckered out from last night to go another round?”

That hit a little close to the mark—and Bones was second to none at hitting a mark. But Jim knew how to play this game. He leaned back with a broad smile. “Why, Bones, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

Bones twitched an eyebrow at him, and Scotty chortled into his Guinness.

“Besides, she’s nothing compared to that brunette sitting behind you,” Jim added. “Now that’s someone to write home about.”

Bones couldn’t resist taking a peak over his shoulder.

“Although,” Jim said, “I think she might be making eyes at Scotty.”

“Ach,” Scotty said, kicking back in his chair and grinning a self-satisfied grin. “She’s a fine one, she is. Puts me in mind of a wee lassie I picked up on Veda Carthinian...”

Once Scotty got going, there was no turning the conversation back. Talk turned to tales of past flames—tall tales of past flames, in a lot of cases. The woman at the bar was forgotten, and Jim breathed more easily.

***

It was a relief to beam back up to the Enterprise two days later. Granted, two days in McCoy and Scotty’s company had been a vast improvement on Jim’s day alone: the three of them had done a bit of exploring in the countryside the next day, before meeting up with Chekhov and Sulu for a truly wild evening, some of which Kirk could barely remember. They had all needed to do a bit of recovering the day after that—and recovery was always more fun with company. But Jim still felt like he was killing time, just waiting for leave to be over.

He had originally planned to beam up to the Enterprise on the morning after that, the final one of shore leave, but he spent most of that penultimate day itching to be back on board. He managed to wait until the evening, and then he decided that whatever small portion of pride he would sacrifice by beaming up early was worth it.

Relief was too mild a word for his feeling when he materialized in the transporter room. He was back: back where he belonged, back where he was in command, back where his time would be put to valuable use instead of being idled away in a half-desperate effort to escape his own thoughts.

“Welcome back, sir,” said the ensign on duty in the transporter room.

“Yes, thank you, ensign” Kirk said. He put a hand on the wall and couldn’t keep back a fond half-smile. This ship—this was his life. “Hard to stay away, when the ship’s calling.”

“Quite right, sir,” the ensign said. “Just like Commander Spock.”

Kirk snapped his head around, already halfway toward the door. “Commander Spock? What, is he back already?”

“Never left, sir,” the ensign said. “I think he’s been in the science labs.” The ensign looked slightly disconcerted, perhaps by the look on Kirk’s face. “I...thought you knew, sir.”

Jim forced his mouth closed. He felt himself wanting to smile, and he had to stop himself complying, because really, what reason did he have to be pleased? It didn’t matter to him. It couldn’t matter to him.

“Very good. Thank you, ensign,” he said, and left.

***

The next day, the ship was suddenly bustling again, and all was business as usual (with perhaps a few extra wincing faces under the bright lights of the mess that morning). They had gotten their new orders and were set to leave for Farkas XIII, an Earth-like planet that had recently expressed interest in joining the Federation. The _Enterprise_ was instructed to seal the deal. Getting there meant almost a week of travel through friendly space, and they set forth at warp factor one as soon as the last crew member was beamed aboard.

It was good to have everyone back in their places, and doubly good to have a constant stream of all-absorbing distractions. Kirk threw himself into ship’s business with unmatched enthusiasm. There was only one moment that first day when his mind was forcibly recalled to subjects he was trying to avoid.

It was when he was leaving the officers’ mess that first morning. He stepped into the hall and had to jump back to avoid—Growdon. The lieutenant was moving almost fast enough to be reprimanded for creating a safety hazard. His fists were clenched at his side, and his face was the very picture of misery.

Kirk froze for a moment, shocked by the sudden evidence of what he had strongly suspected since his conversation with the ensign in the transporter room last night. Then he felt an unaccountable and highly inappropriate surge of elation—temporary and quickly quashed, but undeniable.

It was from all angles a terrible reaction. He was the captain, for pity’s sake. He should feel compassion in the face of a crewman’s pain, not joy. Though to be fair, it wasn’t the pain he was happy about. It was—

But no. He didn’t want to go there. Nothing good lay down that road.

That line of thought was enough to put him in a bad mood as he reached the bridge. It couldn’t last, though: Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov...it was so good to see them at their posts, working away. This, his crew on his bridge and the ship off to a new world, was how things should be.

He couldn’t help but sneak a look at Spock as he walked to the center chair. The Vulcan was leaning over the scanner and seemed unperturbed. Granted, Spock would be unlikely to show a reaction regardless of his inner state, but Jim found himself somehow soothed. It was clear that something negative had happened between his first officer and Lieutenant Growdon, and while Growdon was deeply affected by it, there was no indication that Spock was upset.

It didn’t matter, of course. Couldn’t matter. Jim was relieved when the backlog of reports started to pour in and took his mind off the whole business.

***

The trip to Farkas VIII was predictably uneventful. This was fine at first; Jim needed some normalcy, and there were always things to catch up on after most of the crew had been gone on shore leave. But after the fourth day without incident or excitement, he started to get the antsy feeling that he sometimes got after too many days of simply flying through space. Worse: his mind started drifting back to the events preceding Project Don’t Think About It.

It had been almost a week now that he had studiously Not Thought About It. He had Not Thought About It on the bridge by focusing on reports and star maps and all the minor decisions that needed to be made. He had Not Thought About It off-shift by spending time catching up on paperwork or having a drink or two with Bones or Scotty. And he had Not Thought About It at night by working himself in the gym so hard that he fell into bed exhausted, with no energy at all for—ahem—more recreational activities.

But by the fourth night, it had all stopped working. Jim went to the gym as usual and spent over an hour on the treadmill and the weight room, but when he went to bed he was still fizzing with pent-up energy.

He turned over a few times in an attempt to get comfortable. One emotion kept rising above the rest of the jumble in his mind, but it wasn’t quite what he would have expected. No: this was guilt, and guilt from an unanticipated source. Problem was, it was getting hard to deny to himself that he was actively avoiding Spock.

It had started with their usual breakfast two days before. Jim had had every intention of going until about half an hour before, when he’d given in to nerves and called Spock to cancel. They’d had a few briefings together that day, and Jim he made sure not to linger in the briefing room long enough to let the two of them be alone. Then he’d started noticing a distance in his own voice when he spoke to Spock on the bridge, even about routine ship business (which, to be honest with himself, was all they talked about these days). Worst of all, he was pretty sure that Spock had noticed, too.

Jim wasn’t sure what to do about this. He felt like someone who’d unknowingly bought a single tribble and woken up three weeks later to find his house packed to the walls. It had all started with the tiny indulgence of a harmless fantasy. But that first night of shore leave...that had pushed it over the edge into something a little too close to reality, and Jim just wasn’t ready to deal with that.

It wasn’t that it had been a bad experience. Quite the contrary. He’d been doing his level best not to think about it, but it was hard to avoid the fact that it was among the best sex he’d ever had. Every time a memory of that night managed to slip through his shields, it was tinged with a mix of nausea and arousal. He felt both at the moment, mingling in his stomach.

_Why_ he felt so negatively about it was a question he didn’t really want to get into. Jim had never been much of for introspection; he’d always preferred to solve a problem when it presented itself. Recently, he’d been doing far too much avoiding of his problems, and he was sick of it.

Well, maybe it was time to do something about it, then. Time take back some control.

Kirk rolled over onto his back and palmed himself once, lightly, through his pajama pants. He was already slightly hard. It had been a week since he’d let himself do this—since before the shore leave encounter. Part of it the reason (much as he hated to admit it) had been sexual satisfaction: he hadn’t felt any sexual needs for a few days after that night with Chase. But more recently, he’d been working himself to exhaustion in the gym because he was afraid to let his sex drive reawaken. He was afraid of the thoughts and memories it would unlock.

But that wasn’t a long-term solution. Maybe now was the time to reclaim his sexuality.

For the first time in over two weeks, he consciously conjured up the image of a female body. No one in particular, but he pictured in great detail those breasts, high and round, their swells just visible over a scooping neckline. The supple curve of a waist below, rounding again into slim hips. First they would just kiss, Jim pulling her body against his as she yielded to his embrace. Melted into it. Their tongues sliding against each other, slowly and deliciously at first, then with more urgency as their blood heated. He would move a hand up to cup a breast, full and soft with a hard, erect nipple in the middle. She would moan softly in pleasure...

Jim was palming his cock. It was fully hard now. He shoved down his pajama pants and briefs with a flare of triumph and stroked himself as he pictured his fingers slipping under her dress to pinch that nipple. Pushed himself against her body, let her feel the hardness of his cock against her leg. He knew that feeling: the satisfaction of a rigid shaft jutting into his hip, sliding against his own...

_No._

Jim took his hand from his cock and gritted his teeth together. He would not let himself be aroused by that. He would not touch himself unless he was thinking about the woman in his arms.

The woman in his arms. That soft body up against his. She and he were both panting now, and she was letting out soft keening sounds as he pressed kisses to her face, her neck. She was pulling off his clothing. Two naked bodies, the mounds of her breasts pressing into him as his cock nestled up near her opening. She would be wet and warm and wanting...

Without his conscious thought, Jim’s fingers slipped into his own opening, and it puckered and pulsed around him. Warm and wanting. His other hand was working furiously at his cock.

She was begging for it. The woman in his arms was sliding her hands all over his body, pinching his nipples, kneading his ass. “Give it to me,” she was gasping. “Take me, please, just put it in me.” She wanted that feeling: the hard cock in her insides. It was making her quiver and pant with desire. She clung to him and pressed kisses to him and their pulses raced and the drive was too strong and he plunged in.

Entrance. The firm, full cock sliding in...piercing her and making her arch back and moan. That intense excitement, that blessed relief of the cock fully sheathed. The fullness, the friction, making him sob with desire. Plunging in and out...in and out...hot against the walls of his channel, filling him and making him slam his fists against the wall. Making his stomach spasm in pleasure, making his cock leak pre-cum and his breath come in gasps and his muscles and bones melt into heat as that rod kept pounding, and pounding, and pounding into him...

Jim came with violent pleasure at the thought of that the imaginary cock in his ass, and when he finally stopped it was to realize that tears were running down his face. He balled his sheets up in his fists and gritted his teeth against a scream of frustration.


	5. Chapter 5

Jim was still subdued when he left his cabin the next morning, a good hour before he usually did. His sleep had been fitful, and finally he had thrown in the towel and decided to stop staring at the ceiling and get up and go about his day.

He had been out of his cabin for about thirty seconds when he saw Spock coming down the hall. Jim’s command training was the only thing that kept him from freezing or fleeing. His brain kicked in a second later, reminding him that there was no real danger: it wasn’t like Spock could look at him and see the inner turmoil that had kept Jim up half the night. But still, he had to fight the urge to turn and run away.

“Spock,” he said with a half-smile when he’d collected himself enough to do so. “Good morning.”

“Captain.” Spock nodded at him and seemed about to continue on his way, but he hesitated, as if to say something else.

Jim felt a twinge of alarm that urged him again to get out of there as soon as possible, but he made himself wait. “Yes, Mr. Spock?”

Spock cocked his head slightly. “I was wondering if you might be free tonight.”

Kirk hoped that his panic didn’t actually flash across his eyes. “I’m...afraid not,” he said.

“I see,” Spock replied. There was a final tone to his words, and Kirk thought the conversation might be over—but still Spock did not move on. He looked down and back up again, holding Jim’s gaze, and when he spoke, it was in a quieter voice. “I have missed our chess games, captain.”

The words were like a blow to Jim’s gut. There had been something vulnerable in Spock’s tone that he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before. And for Spock to admit he missed something...

He knew now that he was right: he had been hurting Spock with his distance. But he could not make things like they had been. He would not be able to live through that.

“Yes, I...” Jim stopped, cleared his throat. “After the mission tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll play then.”

Spock’s face lightened almost imperceptibly. “I shall plan on it,” he said.

They parted ways, and Jim found that he was shaking. He balled his hands into fists, fighting against the emotions that assailed him. Guilt, that he was hurting Spock this way. Longing...undefined longing that he couldn’t bring himself to examine. And fear—fear that Spock would find out about the longing...

Yes, he was hurting Spock. But there was only so much he could do about it for now. He would just have to give things a little time.

***

It was clear from the briefing materials that the visit to Farkas VIII was largely a formality. The Farkasians had already to all intents and purposes agreed to join the Federation, but given their well-known high standards of honor and hospitality, not to mention their important location near several new Federation colonies, Starfleet Command didn’t want to take any chances. The Farkasians were to be welcomed in style, which meant dress uniforms and a landing party of senior officers. No security, of course, since this was purely a meeting among friends. However, that didn’t keep Jim from being on his guard; he had found that the “formalities” were usually the missions that ended up going horribly wrong.

But the evening went smoothly. Jim, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, and Uhura beamed down precisely at 19:00 planet time, when the Farkasians had arranged to temporarily suspend the planetary shield that kept out all unwanted visitors. The arrival point turned out to be a grandly appointed lobby of one of their government buildings. The landing party was greeted by a group of cheerful humanoids—just a slight flushed pink color to their skin to indicate any difference from a Caucasian human. The Farkasians ushered them into the banquet hall, where, to all appearances, the upper crust of Farkasian society was already seated.

As soon as the _Enterprise_ party entered, the Farkasians started banging their hands on the table in their society’s equivalent of applause. “We are so pleased at your presence, captain,” the Farkasian president said to Kirk as he showed them to their seats, speaking above the applause. “We are so looking forward to joining with your great Federation!”

Kirk gave him a warm smile. “It is our honor to accept you. Planets like yours do our Federation proud.”

The man beamed at him and shook his hand a few times before moving on.

The rest of the dinner was in much the same tone. The landing party was showered with food and drink and entertained by traditional musicians and dancers between courses. The Farkasians had obviously pulled out all the stops, but Jim found himself wishing that the performances were shorter and that Farkasian hospitality didn’t demand that he try every single plate that passed him by.

It might have had something to do with his being seated next to Spock. He often was at official occasions, and he had been expecting it tonight. The Farkasians made a point of it, actually: they seated Kirk first and then made a big noise about putting his first officer right next to him. Jim tried to smile and look grateful for what they evidently thought was a courtesy.

As the evening progressed, the cultural performances were replaced with short speeches from a few Farkasian representatives. Finally, as the last of the dishes were cleared away, the vice president spoke for several minutes about the great benefits they would reap from their new alliance, before introducing the president.

The president approached the podium with the same enthusiasm with which he had greeted Jim. To Jim’s surprise, rather than shaking hands the vice president’s hand, the president put his hands on his waist and kissed him on the mouth. Not a platonic kiss, either. Jim couldn’t help but wonder—

But it wasn’t any of his business. He looked straight ahead to avoid the temptation to glance at Spock.

The president raised his cup in the direction of the Enterprise guests. Jim noticed that his glass had been filled for what felt like the dozenth time, and he dutifully mimicked the other guests and stood up with his newly filled glass in hand. “To the Federation!” the president cried out, and the assembled Farkasians echoed the cry. Jim put on a gracious smile as heads turned towards them.

The president went on. “It is the greatest of all nights, my friends: a night of joining. There have been many in Farkasian history, as we have slowly become the unified planet we are today, but this is far greater than any that have come before. Tonight, we join with something far beyond ourselves. May the joy of that joining encompass not only us, but also our friends from the _Enterprise,_ who do us such honor with their presence. Drink with me, and let us celebrate this night of becoming one!”

“Becoming one!” the crowd echoed, and drained their wine glasses. Kirk was careful to drain his as well. The liquid burned in his throat, and if he hadn’t just spent the whole evening eating, he might have been alarmed about its effects. As it was, he probably had the tolerance of an elephant. Or at least of Scotty.

The president took the vice president’s hand, and together they walked out of the hall to the cheers of the crowd. As soon as they were gone, one of the president’s aides came up to the _Enterprise_ crew. “If you will all follow me, I will show you to your rooms.”

They had been prepared for this and had beamed down with luggage, which presumably was now in the rooms they were going to. Kirk led his crew after the aide. He was profoundly relieved that the dinner was over and looking forward to being able to close his door against the world and get some sleep. He was feeling a little strange—too much to eat and drink. Maybe he’d been wrong about his tolerance for that last glass of wine. He took a few steadying breaths and walked carefully as they all left the hall.

They went up a few flights of stairs, to the upper floors of the government building they’d originally beamed into. That was where things really started to go wrong.

Their guide stopped at the beginning of a hallway. “Your rooms are here,” he said. “Four single rooms on this side of the hall...” He crossed to another door a little farther down. “And here is the double room. If you will, sirs.” To Jim’s surprise, he bowed to him and Spock.

Jim felt his eyebrows rise at the same time that his stomach sank into the region of his intestines. It was clear from their guide’s behavior that this was an honor. And that was why they were here, after all: to satisfy the Farkasian sense of honor. Jim couldn’t afford to jeopardize the signing tomorrow by spurning their offer—even if it did play into his worst nightmares.

He covered up his discomfort with a weak smile at their guide. “Of course,” he said. “Come, Mr. Spock...”

Spock followed him into the room. As soon as the two of them were inside, the door swung shut behind them. Maybe it was Jim’s state of mind, but he could have sworn it sounded like the clanging of iron bars.

He put off looking at Spock for the moment and surveyed the room before them. It was a large one with a door that likely led to a bathroom. There were a number of couches and chairs, but, he was less than thrilled to see, only one giant bed.

“Well, Mister Spock, here we are,” he said, trying for lighthearted irony. “At least they seem to have cocooned us in luxury.”

Spock had turned to examine standing desk near the door. “Indeed. The quality of furnishings is impressive.”

He looked up from the desk, and Jim found his own gaze skittering away without his conscious direction. To cover his discomfort, he wandered further into the room and opened some of the cabinets. There was a wardrobe at one end filled with what looked like various kinds of sleeping garments. “No need to worry about clothing,” he muttered.

He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Spock disappearing into the bathroom. Jim felt an almost physical relief at his absence from the room. He sat down on a couch and put a hand to his temples. He was exhausted, and it was going to be a long night.

Not only exhausted, he realized: he still felt a bit of the strangeness that had followed him out of the banquet hall. His whole body felt oddly flushed. The room wasn’t particularly warm; it felt more like an internal heat, like a mild fever. It seemed to be concentrating itself in...

He adjusted his trousers with a jolt of alarm. This was not the time for thinking like that.

Except...he didn’t think he _had_ been thinking like that. He still wasn’t. His alarm and discomfort had been miles away from arousal.

No time for panic. Jim leaned back against the couch and very pointedly directed his thoughts toward the various equations he could remember from interstellar physics at the Academy. He spend a few solid minutes cycling through them and got pretty into it, taking the time to chase down a unit that wouldn’t cancel in the warp equation. It was just about the most thoroughly unerotic chain of thought he could have followed.

And yet, his body didn’t seem to have traveled where his mind was. Even after immersing his thoughts in interstellar physics, he came out of it to find that he was still distinctly hard. Maybe more so than he had been. Worse, feelings of desire were starting to curl out from his groin and tingle their way through his bloodstream, pulling his mind away from physics.

He crossed one leg over the other and shifted so that it would be less obvious. Spock was still in the bathroom, with the door open; it sounded like he was going through the medicine cabinet. “How’s it going in there?” Jim called to him, then winced at the awkwardness of that question aimed at someone in the bathroom.

“Moderately well,” Spock responded, coming back into the room. Jim shifted his legs and found that he couldn’t look directly at him. “There are no bathing facilities, but the Farkasians seem to have provided us with all the toiletries we might possibly have need of.”

“Nothing if not hospitable.” One luxurious nightmare, coming right up.

He kept his gaze low, hoping Spock would just think he was lost in thought. Watching Spock move around the room was the last thing he needed right now—although at this point he wasn’t sure it would make any difference. He took deep, slow breaths and hoped for things to subside.

They didn’t seem to be doing so. Kirk prayed with desperation tinged with growing panic that nothing would happen to require him to stand up.

“Captain,” Spock said from the other side of the room, startling Kirk out of his panicked reverie. “Are you feeling at all...unusual?”

Kirk’s gaze snapped up to Spock. “Why do you ask?” he hedged.

“Because,” Spock replied, “I believe it is possible that we have been given a mild aphrodisiac.”

Jim felt hot blood in his cheeks and resisted valiantly the urge to look down at Spock’s pants to assess the situation. “An aphrodisiac? Are you sure?”

Spock cocked his head at him, and Jim again had to fight the urge to see for himself. “As a Vulcan, I am able to detect the presence of any exterior agents influencing my system. An aphrodisiac is highly indicated. I would give it a ninety-six-point-three percent probability.”

Kirk gave a mirthless chuckle. “It would...fit conditions over here, too.” He forced himself to uncross his legs, which had been beginning to cramp. He felt a wave of relief: this condition was not his fault. “I assume we have the Farkasians to thank. Motivation?”

There was that head-tilt again. Kirk felt something within him twinge. “Difficult to say.”

“Speculate.”

“Three possibilities present themselves,” Spock said. “Benevolent error, malevolent error, or intent.”

Kirk nodded slowly. “It stands to reason that we wouldn’t react to Farakasian cuisine the same way they would. Innocent error, or poisoning attempt.”

“Both possible,” Spock said, “but unlikely, given the differences between human and Vulcan physiology.”

“Which leaves...” Kirk trailed off with a questioning glance.

Spock paused before replying. “It is possible that the aphrodisiac is part of a cultural union ritual. To celebrate the joining of their planet with the Federation, they may have given us an aphrodisiac in order to facilitate a night of...joining.”

Jim wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, or if Spock’s cheeks were flushed green. He remembered the words of the president’s speech and felt a cold wash of fear battle his arousal. That would explain why they had been given a room together. “Why us?” he asked. “Why not Bones or Uhura or the others?”

Another noticeable pause. “It is possible, captain, that the Farkasians treat joining as an honor reserved, on these ceremonial occasions, for the highest-ranking officers.”

“I see.” Kirk shifted again, trying to relieve the pressure at his crotch. He was trying to remember why he had been relieved on first learning that they had been given an aphrodisiac. Shifting the blame was all well and good, but not when it left him in this condition. He would have given a lot for the ability to go somewhere private and take care of himself. If there had been a shower...but he couldn’t imagine taking himself in hand in the bathroom, even with the door shut, knowing Spock was in the other room and fully aware of what he was doing.

He forced himself to stand up. His erection felt like the most obvious thing in the world, but he reminded himself that it was just chemical: there was no reason to be embarrassed by it.

He was embarrassed, though, and as soon as he stood up, he felt like a fool just standing there. He wandered a few steps amid the furniture, but that felt like the most awkwardly fake-casual move of all, so he stopped and fiddled with a statuette on an end table. 

Even stronger than his embarrassment was his arousal. He felt as if he were getting more turned on by the minute, and as it always seemed to these days, his arousal was becoming more and more focused on one person. He was starting to wish that Spock were closer...that Spock were next to him, touching him, leaning into him...

Jim clenched his fists. This couldn’t last. He couldn’t trust himself here in the room with Spock in this condition, and he would be damned if stayed here just because of some twisted Farkasian idea of honor. He strode toward the door, just barely keeping his panic in check long enough to reach it and turn the doorknob.

It was locked.

Jim tried the knob twice again out of disbelief. It was unmistakably locked. He gave a shaky laugh and turned around.

“Going somewhere?” Spock asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Evidently not,” Jim said, trying to sound casual and not as if he had just tried to flee his first officer’s presence. Certainly not as if the sight of Spock’s raised eyebrow made him twitch with the desire to touch it.

So the Farkasians had locked them in—for their privacy or to ensure that they did what the Farkasians wanted, Jim wasn’t sure. But he found himself more determined than ever not to let them win. He pulled out his communicator and commed Bones.

“McCoy here,” said the voice on the line.

“Doctor. It’s the captain. Have you tried to get out of your room?”

“Not yet. Why, have the Farkasians been giving you trouble?” There was a pause while Bones was obviously crossing the room to get to the door. “Well, I’ll be damned. Locked.”

Jim sighed. “Ours too.” He paused, made eye contact with Spock, then broke it just as quickly. “Are you fine otherwise? ...Normal?”

“Far as I can tell.” There was a pause in which Jim could almost hear Bones’ antennae going up. “What’s wrong, Jim-boy? You or the hobgoblin having any trouble?”

There was no way Jim was going to bring himself to mention it. “No, no, all fine. Have a good night’s sleep.”

“Jim—”

Jim flipped the communicator shut before Bones could say anything else. The absence of Bones on the line brought with it the consciousness of being alone with Spock, which made his pulse rise and his—

He took a deep and shaky breath. “I’m willing to bet we’re all locked in,” he said.

Spock seemed to be his usual unflappable self. “Given the Farkasians’ behavior so far, I do not believe we have reason to see this as a threat.”

Jim tried to hold back a laugh and ended up sounding like he was choking. “Right.”

“However,” Spock continued, “it is a safety hazard. I believe we should attempt to find a way out.”

He crossed to the door, taking Jim by surprise, so that he barely had time to move out of the way. As he did, he caught a whiff of Spock’s scent. It sent desire swimming through his system, and he had to lean against the wall to keep from reaching out and touching Spock right then and there.

“Did you say...mild aphrodisiac?” he asked, trying to control his breathing.

Spock had pulled out a pin and was fiddling with the doorknob. He didn’t look up. “I admit that I do not have much to measure it against.”

Jim gave a weak laugh and let his gaze settle on Spock as he worked.

It was a mistake. Once Jim started looking, he couldn’t look away. Spock...so close, his dark eyes intent on the doorknob and his long limbs touchably near. Jim could almost feel his body heat radiating across the space between them. Could almost imagine what it would be like to touch that body. Just to put a hand on his arm, feel the warmth of his skin through the uniform cloth, relieve this unrelenting desire for contact...

He took a few steps away, balling his hands into fists again and digging his nails into his palms. “Don’t worry about the door,” he said. “We’ll deal with safety hazards when they arise.”

“Negative.” Spock did not look up. “We cannot communicate with the ship with the planetary shield in place, and in the event of an emergency, we would have no way to leave.”

“Couldn’t have that,” Jim said. Had Spock’s mouth always looked so soft? His lips were partly open as he concentrated, just begging to be kissed...

“Perhaps if you assisted me,” Spock said, looking up suddenly.

The sudden eye contact made Jim breathe in quickly and look away. “What?”

“With the hinges.” Spock gestured to the hinges, and his arm passed within inches of Jim’s stomach. “We may be able to remove them and escape in that way.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course, Mister Spock.” Jim turned in a daze and picked up an iron paperweight from a nearby table. He set to work trying to knock the hinges out while Spock kept working on the locking mechanism on the doorknob.

This put them maybe one foot apart from each other, and Jim felt every inch keenly. It was so easy to imagine what it would feel like if that foot weren’t there, and if Jim were running his hands all over Spock.

The hinges were rock solid (as were some other things at the moment), and it became clear that nothing he could do with a paperweight was going to change that. Not that it was, perhaps, his most focused effort. After a few minutes, he put down the paperweight and leaned against the door. “We need a new plan. This isn’t working.”

Spock straightened up from the doorknob. “I admit to similar conclusions about the locking mechanism.”

“Yes,” Jim said vaguely. “It does seem...most stubborn.”

Spock met his gaze. This time, Jim let the eye contact continue. He knew there were problems he was supposed to be trying to solve, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what they were. They were all wiped out by the surge of feeling that came from looking into those eyes. It made the tips of his toes and fingers tingle and turned all thoughts into a swirling whirlpool of confusion...

“We must think of an alternate solution,” Spock said, his voice lower and unmistakably rougher than usual. Jim felt the sound of it run right through him.

“Yes, you’re right,” he said. He found his gaze wandering from Spock’s eyes to his mouth. His soft, wet, kissable mouth...

No. He couldn’t look there. He had to look away. He would look down...look somewhere else... No, not _there!_

It was too late—Jim’s eyes had fallen to exactly where he’d been trying to avoid looking for the past quarter-hour. The aphrodisiac had evidently been having the same effect on Spock’s anatomy as it had on Jim’s. Jim felt his eyes fasten there, on that telltale bulge, and he felt an answering throb in his own cock.

It was impossible to ignore the racing of his heart. He put out his tongue to lick his lips and closed his eyes for a moment. “Right. We, um...we just need to figure out someone else to call. The Farkasians...”

“Yes.” Spock breathed out the word in a gust of air. The scent of it caught Kirk and pulled him in, so that he opened his eyes and leaned in towards Spock’s body. They seemed to have gotten much closer together, so that there was almost no space now between their faces. It was all warmth and proximity now, all sweet gusts of Spock’s breath over Kirk’s face. He could taste it in his mouth.

But no. This was Spock. He could not have this reaction to Spock. He had to pull himself together. This was just a chemical reaction. But he knew it was more than that: the chemical reaction had merely broken down his ability to resist what was already there. What had been torturing him for the past month, and was now bursting out of his control.

“Perhaps if we...” Kirk started without any idea of how to finish the sentence. Clear thought had fled as soon as Spock had gotten this close. But he had to fight it...because if he let himself do what his body was screaming at him to do, then there would be no denying it, to either Spock or himself...

The thought was drowned in the overwhelming magnetic pull Spock was exerting on him. Somehow Kirk’s hand rose and went to the side of Spock’s chest, fingers resting on heated skin through uniform shirt. The relief of that first touch was electric. He heard Spock give a sharp intake of breath that seemed to pull Kirk in towards him. 

They had been talking about something. But Jim’s mouth had another goal now. It hung near Spock’s, their mouths drifting, pulled inexorably towards each other, not touching, not touching, until...

The first hot lush soft contact sent a sharp burst of sensation all through Jim’s body. His other hand came up to thread through Spock’s hair and press Spock’s head to his. His last thought, before he lost himself utterly in the depths of kiss, was that it was all right: everything could be blamed on the aphrodisiac. Spock would never need to know...

Their lips sipped at each other, each taste so intoxicating that Jim could hardly bear more. The taste of Spock washed through him and erased all other thoughts in his head. The feeling of Spock ran up and down his limbs and across every inch of his skin. It was in the very softest tip of a tongue that reached for his own...the slow slide as their tongues came alongside each other, as their mouths slotted into place with the gentlest sucking motion...

The kiss was all-consuming. It took over Jim’s whole body. Three points of contact: hand on chest, hand on head, lips on lips, and Jim wasn’t sure it hadn’t killed him—that it hadn’t shorted him out, maxed out all his nerves, liquidated him into a charged cloud of sensation.

Then, hands on his waist, pulling him in. The heated furnaces of their bodies moved towards each other. That approaching onrush of _Spock_ came upon Jim like a tide and took his breath away. Hardness—his own—Spock’s—touched, and that touch was so monumental that for a long moment he couldn’t imagine reaching for anything greater. There couldn’t be anything beyond this fullness of joy: Spock in his arms, able to be held and tasted and kissed...

Jim drank deeply from Spock’s mouth. A single hazy thought managed to make its way into his mind: that this was totally different than it had been with Chase. That had been hot, that had been arousing, but it hadn’t been _Spock._ Spock seemed to be all around him, in his head and throat and stomach and the marrow of his bones. The heat that hung about them wiped Jim’s mind of all the things he might have thought, all the fears and concerns he might have had. There was nothing but this. There was no one but Spock.

Spock made a little noise of pleasure in the back of his throat that tore affection out of Jim. He chased that noise with his tongue, gave pleasure as he took it, reached further into Spock’s mouth, felt their flames of pleasure rise higher together. Spock slid his hands under Jim’s shirt and traced the spine where sweat was starting to bead.

They clung together, mouths joined and moving, bodies flush and pressing. They were gasping for air. Mouths separated and foreheads pressed together, and it didn’t matter, because they were so close to each other that the energy of it was like a current between their skins. Jim kissed that skin: lips pressed to cheek, to jaw, to lip. His fingers quested after it under clothing. Shirts and pants fell away and littered the floor. Briefs followed, and naked cock scraped against cock.

Jim gasped and dug fingers into Spock’s ass as that feeling made his back arch. A note of urgency, of desperation, swelled between them. They moved together towards the bed, moved as one, mouths sealed together again and hands touching everywhere they could. Spock made soft caressing sounds as his hands explored Jim’s body. They were sounds that Jim would never have imagined coming from Spock, and yet they only made him more desperate for all of Spock he could touch. He had another thought, a stray wisp floating through the all-consuming feeling of Spock’s hands on him: that he never wanted to be farther apart than this, that he always wanted Spock’s hands on him...

The soft surface of the bed welcomed their union. Spock rolled on top of Jim, cocks fiery rods between them, and lifted enough to thrust their cocks against each other again. Jim threw his head back against the pillows and shuddered and cried out, “Spock!”

They couldn’t stop after that: pistoning together, trying to relieve to whatever small degree possible the urgent desire that was swimming through them. Want was burning in Jim’s stomach; it was an ache that started in his loins and spiraled outward. He felt the desperate desire that they not be separate anymore: that the skin that was separating them no longer exist...

Spock’s lips were kissing his skin, pressed to Jim’s chest. His hands slid around and underneath Jim’s buttocks, and a finger pierced through the tight ring of muscle there.

Jim gave a constricted sob at the feeling and thrust his cock into Spock’s stomach. He couldn’t contain it—couldn’t hold the feeling in—and so he let it out as desperate stroking of his hands against Spock’s skin, touching everything he could. Spock’s fingers were inside him, spreading something slick and smooth and joining the two of them more closely than they had been, piercing through the barrier of skin into his inner core. He felt as if his wonder and relief must be spilling over into the air, filling the room, filling both of them. Finally, after all those nights of wanting...all those nights of touching himself and imagining this...

Spock slid back up and seized Jim’s mouth again, and Jim took his willingly, wanting every small joining as much as was possible. His legs were separating, Spock’s hard member slipping in between. Spock was lifting Jim’s hips, sliding a pillow underneath, canting Jim up towards him, Jim still touching him everywhere. Needing as much of Spock under his hands as he could have.

The blunt head of Spock’s cock came up against Jim’s opening. Jim had half-imagined this sight so many times: Spock above him, flush with shared desire, ready to enter him. This was really what he’d wanted, every time he’d fingered himself; every time he’d played with a dildo; while Chase was entering him. Spock inside of him. Spock within him.

Jim’s breath was tearing out of him in gasps. “Yes, please put it in me. Spock. Spock. Oh, God, Spock, I love you. I love you!”

Spock gave a wordless cry, and his member slipped inside Jim’s ring. Jim arched back and felt the spike of pleasure almost tear him apart. Spock slid out and in again, out and in again, deeper and deeper, each thrust better than the last, that sweet friction making Jim scream in pleasure until he crested in a spasm of blinding intensity. He was coming, and coming, and coming, as Spock slid inside him one last time and filled him with a burst of hot seed.


End file.
